


Hoarded

by rabid_plotbunny



Series: Stories from the WIP file [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, WIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabid_plotbunny/pseuds/rabid_plotbunny
Summary: An alternate take on what could have happened when Thranduil brought his forces to the Mountain.
Relationships: Smaug/Thranduil (Tolkien)
Series: Stories from the WIP file [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739023
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Hoarded

Consciousness slowly, reluctantly forced itself on Thranduil. One hand rose to his aching head even as he blinked in an effort to clear blurring vision. What had happened to him?

He put his hands down on the cold surface beneath him and pushed himself up with a clink and hiss of shifting metal. What-?

He blinked again, took a closer look at the surface on which he lay. Gold. Gold coins, gold bars. Gold platters and goblets. Gold and gems. Gems in gold. Loose gems, exquisitely cut; diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires. Where on Arda was he...?

The last thing he could recall was... was... leading his troops towards Erebor to claim his rightful portion of the dragon's hoard. They had crested a ridge and come within sight of the mountain, seen the overgrown, burned and crumbled remains of what had once been the thriving city of Dale below the Mountain’s main gate. There was a sudden disturbance to one side of the gathered forces; shock, cries of dismay, and he looked over to see--

His head jerked up and he looked around with renewed urgency. Gold and gems as far as he could see. The room itself was cavernous in its enormity, the sides lost in gloom to even his keen sight. Huge, intricately carved pillars, bigger than many trees, matching a pattern he’d seen before....

_Oh, Valar!_

He shot to his feet and immediately came to three very unpleasant realizations.

One, he was completely naked; even his crown and rings were gone from his person.

Two, there was a thin mithril chain bound around his ankle, the other end trailing off into the darkness and presumably attached to something large and immobile.

Three, a giant reptilian eye had just opened up in the heap of gold beside him. Reptilian; _draconian_.

He stared at his own image reflected in the dark, slit pupil and swallowed drily.

Smaug.

He had been taken by the dragon Smaug and, apparently, added to the venerable beast’s new hoard.

_Oh, Valar...!_

It was with a supreme force of will that he stayed standing tall and proud as great golden heaps shifted and slithered all around him as the dragon stirred, rising up from its resting place, slit pupils never moving from its guest.

“Word has reached me, little Elf king, that those tiny armies gathering at the foot of my mountain are already dividing my hoard between them,” the beast intoned in its deep golden voice. “Word has reached me that _you_ would claim what is not yours to claim.”

Thranduil swallowed again, tried uselessly to ignore his own naked vulnerability in the face of the giant predator before him. It wasn’t as if the armor that he _had_ been wearing would have done him any good, after all! “I seek only to be properly compensed for the disruption that the dwarves caused with their passing through my kingdom.”

“Then you should have looked to them for compensation,” the dragon said logically. “Instead, you seek to steal from me what is rightfully mine.”

“This mountain and its riches belonged to the dwarves-”

“And now it is mine. It is not to me to pay for their indiscretions. If they could not keep their hoard their own, then they did not deserve it. Fortunately, it is now in much more capable claws.”

Thranduil couldn’t help but eye those same razor-sharp claws; they were _far_ too close for comfort. “And what of me, then? What of my people?”

If a dragon could be said to smirk, that was the expression that crossed Smaug’s draconian face even as he moved his massive form to completely surround the hapless king. “You,” came the deep rumbling purr. “I will admit that when I flew at your forces this morn, my intention was quite simply to devour you.”

Thranduil couldn’t help the brief nervous glance at the gold-and-jewel-encrusted form curled almost lazily around him, nor the brief flinch as a massive foreclaw came close, closer, and ran through his long loose hair. “A-and now?”

“When I saw you in the dawn’s light, your armor glittering like gleaming silver scales, hair gleaming like finely spun gold, skin shining like pearl, like moonstone, I could not simply see you as a tasty morsel,” Smaug said.

“So you will not... eat me?”

Smaug let out an amused chuckle that rattled the Elf’s very bones. “Not at this time.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I don't know what you might have heard about my kind, little king, and the reason we hoard as we do....”

“Greed, and a... fascination for gold and things that shine....”

“Greed?” laughed the dragon. “No, not greed. What we dragons have is an acute appreciation for beautiful things.” That deadly claw ran through silky golden hair once again. “You are aware that you are... very... beautiful, are you not?”

Thranduil felt a sinking feeling in his gut, and prayed to all the Valar that the conclusion he was coming to was incorrect. “What does that mean for me?”

A toothy, draconic grin. “I find beautiful things and add them to my hoard. You are very beautiful. And so I took you and brought you here, and here is where you will stay. Welcome to your new home, my pretty little Elf king.”

_Oh, Valar!_


End file.
